ECB Coaches Association links Coaching Insight 2019 | Page 52

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Junior Cricket in 2019
We know from your feedback and
from listening to children that have
taken part in All Stars Cricket,
that they love to be active while
playing and want to have as many
opportunities to hit the ball, catch,
run, throw and bowl. The age and
stage appropriate formats aim to
maintain this active enjoyment and
give players as many opportunities to
be involved while learning to play.
For those aged 5-8 we’ve seen that
the All Stars Cricket programme gives
children a great first experience of the
game and the recommendations aim
to further ignite a love of the game,
having the enjoyment of your players
as a priority. Pitch length, number
of players per team, type of ball and
boundary sizes all contribute to players
enjoyment by being actively engaged
throughout the games.
In 2018 we saw a fantastic number of leagues adopt our junior formats
and the comments we received were extremely positive.
“The feedback around
the format and app was
brilliant – kids and coaches loving it
and the ease of scoring via the app
helped a lot.”
East Yorkshire JCL
“Talking to the parents…shorter
pitch length and uniformed boundaries
across the league seemed to be something
they saw as a positive. Bowling was better
with fewer wides and no balls, leading to
better all-round cricket.”
Swale Junior League, Kent
“In my opinion, the
new ball and shorter pitch
worked really well. The ball
bounced more and there were
a lot of hittable balls. We hit
more fours in this game than
most of last season!”
Northumberland JCL
Under 11s Hardball
Team Manager